A near-perfect Seville day. You made the 9 AM walking tour this time — guide Alba, mostly in English — and covered the headline sights on foot: the Cathedral and La Giralda, the Archivo General de Indias, and the Real Alcázar, with a stroll along the Guadalquivir. Plaza de España was being dressed for an Aitana concert and closed early at 4 PM, but you slipped in first to walk the tiled provincial benches. Dinner was properly Sevillano — 8:30 PM at Bodeguita Casablanca: the famous tortilla con whisky to start, then rice with steak and rice with pork, all excellent — capped with a neighborhood gelato. And Pepin got around like a champ on his scooter.
Today's plan: breakfast and check out of the Silken Al-Andalus Palace → drive ~1 hour to Córdoba → included city tour (~3h, light) with entrance to the Mezquita-Catedral and a walk through the old market streets and the Judería → continue to Granada in the Sierra Nevada foothills → check in at the Occidental Granada. Evening at leisure. (Tomorrow is the Alhambra, then Madrid.)
The single most extraordinary building you'll set foot in on this trip. Begun in 785 by the Umayyad emir Abd al-Rahman I — a prince who'd fled the massacre of his dynasty in Damascus and rebuilt his world in Spain — it was enlarged for two centuries into one of the largest mosques on earth. Then, after Córdoba fell to Castile in 1236, Christians did something almost no one else dared: instead of tearing the mosque down, they dropped a full Renaissance cathedral right into the middle of it. You walk through a forest of 850-odd columns under those famous red-and-white horseshoe arches, turn a corner, and suddenly there's a soaring Christian nave growing out of the roof.
Tip: Look for the mihrab — the prayer niche pointed (curiously) more south than toward Mecca — and its golden Byzantine mosaics, a gift from a Christian emperor in Constantinople to a Muslim caliph in Córdoba. Best light is mid-morning before the columns fill with groups. It's tall and shaded inside — a welcome break from the heat.
The tangle of whitewashed lanes around the mosque is the old Jewish quarter, home to one of medieval Spain's three surviving synagogues and to a statue of Maimonides — the Jewish philosopher-physician born here in 1138, whose worn bronze foot tourists rub for luck (or wisdom). Don't miss the Calleja de las Flores, a tiny flower-hung alley that frames the cathedral bell tower at its far end — the most photographed sliver of Córdoba.
Then you climb east into the Sierra Nevada foothills to Granada — the last city the Moors held in Spain, surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the same year Columbus sailed (he actually got his royal yes here, in the Alhambra's afterglow). Tonight is at leisure, so if anyone has legs left, the Albaicín — the old Moorish quarter of steep white lanes opposite the Alhambra — has the famous sunset view of the palace glowing red against the mountains from the Mirador de San Nicolás. Granada is also the rare Spanish city where many bars still bring a free tapa with every drink.
Heads-up for tomorrow: the Alhambra is timed-entry and strict — passports must already be with Exoticca for ticketing. Rest up; it's the crown jewel.
Pope León XIV touches down at Madrid-Barajas around 10:30 this morning to begin a six-day visit to Spain, his first as pontiff. King Felipe and Queen Letizia, with Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía, welcome him at the Royal Palace; this afternoon he visits a Cáritas homeless center in the working-class Carabanchel district, and tonight he holds a prayer vigil with young people. The centerpiece is Sunday's Corpus Christi Mass at Plaza de Cibeles, with a packed Bernabéu event Monday. Fitting bookend to your week — the corrida you saw in Seville Thursday was the Corrida del Corpus, the same feast the Pope now comes to celebrate.
Early-June temperatures are already spiking in the south, with highs near 40 °C (104 °F) in the Guadalquivir valley — and Córdoba is routinely one of the hottest cities in Europe. Forecasters are warning of an above-average, heat-wave-prone summer. Translation for today: hats, water bottles, and use the cool stone interiors (the Mezquita, the synagogue) to pace yourselves.
The IMF again tagged Spain as the fastest-growing major economy in Europe for 2026 (~2.3–2.4% GDP), powered by tourism and domestic demand. The catch locals keep raising: rents in big cities now swallow well over half of average income, and inflation is stuck around 3.2%, partly on higher energy prices from the Iran conflict. Strong headline, sore housing — a tension you'll hear in the debate below.
Lighter across the border: Portugal's national team plays Chile today in a World Cup 2026 warm-up friendly — the country is already in tournament fever ahead of the summer.
You're walking into the most contested monument in Spain. In 2006 the Diocese of Córdoba registered the Mezquita-Catedral in its own name (paying only the small administrative fee), and a fight over whether a UNESCO World Heritage site can belong to a single church has simmered ever since. Last autumn the central government said in writing it sees no grounds to challenge the Church's registered title — reigniting the argument just as you arrive.
A monument this universal shouldn't be the private property of one faith, argues jurist and activist Antonio Manuel Rodríguez Ramos, the long-time voice of the Plataforma Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba: Patrimonio de Tod@s. His case: an expert commission found the Church "has no, and cannot have, any title of ownership"; the building predates the diocese by centuries and was for generations a civic and shared space; a public patronato (trust) should manage it, leaving the Church to run Catholic worship inside. The 2006 registration, he says, quietly privatized something that belongs to everyone.
The cathedral has been a consecrated, continuously functioning Catholic church for nearly 800 years, counters the Cabildo (Diocese of Córdoba) — and registration "declares ownership, it doesn't create it." Their case: the Church has maintained, restored, and paid for the building across centuries; the government itself confirmed in late 2025 that nothing in the record justifies questioning the title; and the millions of euros in ticket revenue are reinvested in conservation. Strip the Church of ownership, they warn, and you destabilize the legal footing of countless historic churches across Spain.
Where it might land: no court challenge is pending; the live track is a negotiated "special management" arrangement among the government, Córdoba's city hall, and the Church — ownership likely unchanged, governance possibly shared. A good one to chew on standing inside the building itself.
Through the lens of granma.cu and cubadebate.cu: